Thrust Into His Arms

My mind is not at all on the literature being lectured by the teacher. I am thinking of ways to confront Calyx about what he did. I have been pondering deeply, and that leads me to one reason; control. I had given him too much control over me. And now he has crossed way past the line. That control, I need to get it back. Give myself a little ground to stand on and not bend to their will as they want and fawning. My mind suddenly drifts to Curry and her earlier comment about me intending to seduce my way out of Calyx’s antics. I cannot pretend that her saying that is cool. Nor can I actually pretend not to know that all the boys in the class are stealing glances at me.

They’re saying derogatory remarks about my ass. I does not feel good at all. But I can say it is better than before.

The class is taking longer than I expect. I have a plan to carry out.

"Here, listen to this." Maverick fixes one of his ear pods in my ear. A song is playing; One way or another by until the ribbon breaks.

He whispers, "I’m trying to curate a Playlist for my new webtoon. The theme is Highschool hell. There are eight songs in total. Listen to them and tell me what you think."

"You wanna start another webtoon?" I hush, sounding surprised.

"Yeah. My readers were pretty pissed about me deleting the first one. I promised to start another soon before they go bananas." He whirls a finger on the side of his head.

"You deleted things I’II never say?" I’m unaware of the fact that my voice has raised slightly. Noticewise.

"Yes. And you’re making it obvious. The teacher is going to notice us!"

"Hey, both of you!" The teacher—mrs Richardson is looking right at us with that stern ’you are in trouble look’

"Now you’ve done it." Maverick grits and I glare at him. How else was I supposed to react to that information?

She asks just me to stand up, much to my chagrin and zeroing her gaze on me. "It isn’t enough that you’re distracting half the class from learning, but you are also speaking in my class?"

Lying does not seem like a good option since she seen us. But what does she mean that I’m distracting half the class?

I can’t really call that an exaggeration though. The lousy boys behind me are the ones who choose to be distracted. Even without me as a reason, they would always be distracted. "Sit down. See me after the end of class." She sharply instructs, shifting her gaze to Maverick, she goes, "And as for you, detention."

Maverick frets. "But Mrs, Richardson..."

"Double detention for that. I have said it time and again that I’m no longer Mrs Richardson, but Ms Carla now. I should start making examples. Thank you for bringing yourself forth to be used as one.

Now back to the class. With this quote, Shakespeare was illustrating about. . ."

Maverick is staring bug-eyed into space.

"She is such a devil! I had plans for later."

"I figured you would be a great choice to play the role of Juliet. What do you say?" Ms Carla asks me. "I don’t know. I’m not sure I would be good in acting." A play in front of all the students, both the big devils and the lesser devils? I am going to pass. I never expected that this is what she wanted to say when she called me here.

"You’re good with words. You are the best as far as I’m concerned. So please do consider it. We don’t have much time to prepare. So we have to start soon." She is not giving me a choice, is she?

"If you consider it, it would not matter if you start slipping up on your literature grades. It doesn’t matter even if you flunk a test or exam. I would make sure you pass nonetheless. Now what do you say?"

She bargains with a smile.

I left Ms Carla’s office holding a bunch of papers held together by stapler pins. She told me to go through this one and read the book to better understand. God how am I going to do all these? I fret, running my hands through my hair regretfully. There is studying, swimming, music martial arts after school and now this! How do I juggle all of that without having to split myself into four parts?

CALYX

She is standing in front of me, arms folded, staring straight at me with a dark glare. I was confused for a second. More like short-circuit to be honest.

She is not wearing those ugly dresses. She wearing a tight jean that shows off her straight legs and her hips.

She looks banging. Did she always look like this? "Lamont, we need to talk." Her acidic tone snaps me out of my stupid daze.

I drag my eyes to her face. "What and who gave you the right to come into my room and put those things there?" She asks with a scowl. I stare blankly, then narrow my eyes, unable to believe that she is speaking to me in that arrogant tone. "What’s your problem bitch? Did you hit your head on a wall or something?" Curtis says menacingly.

He and Brooke tries to approach her. But she is not faltering like she is supposed to.

Curtis and Brooke were the ones stopping as they are also shocked by her change of attitude. "Maybe I did. So back off! He is the one I’m speaking to not the both of you." She points to me. "From now on henceforth, I refuse to allow the rest of you lay hands on me. I offended just one person so the rest of you should jump off the bullying bandwagon." She spits that right in their faces.

What gets to me mostly is her calm manner in which she said it. Her voice, it’s unshaken. Delivering every word like a sweet, dangerous poison.